every anti-republican feature in your State governments must be abandoned. Fourthly, every loyal man must be restored to the property and the rights you may have robbed him of. Fifthly, no man offensively implicated in the Rebellion must represent any State in Congress. Sixthly, no man must be taxed against his will for any debt incurred through rebellion against the United States. Under these easy and honorable terms, I would readmit the seceded States to the Union; and if these terms are refused, I would occupy and hold the States as conquered territory."

"And could we reconcile such a course with a due regard to law?"

'Surely yes; for the people in rebellion are at once subjects and belligerents. They are public enemies, and as such are entitled only to such privileges as we may choose to concede. They are subjects, and as such must fulfil their obligations to the Republic."

"But you say nothing of confiscation," Mr. Vance.

"I would be as generous as possible in this respect, Mr. President. Loyal men who have been robbed by the secession fury must of course be reimbursed, and the families of those who have been hung for their loyalty must be provided for. I see no fairer way of doing this than by making the robbers give up their plunder, and by compelling the murderers to contribute to the wants of those they have orphaned. But beyond this I would be governed by circumstances as they might develop themselves. I would practice all the clemency and forbearance consistent with justice. Those landholders who should lend themselves fairly and earnestly to the work of substituting a system of paid labor for slavery should be entitled to the most generous consideration and encouragement, whatever their antecedents might have been. I would do nothing for vengeance and humiliation; everything for the benefit of the Southern people themselves and their posterity. Questions of indemnification should not stand in the way of a restored Union."

"Undoubtedly, Mr. Vance, the interests of the masses, North and South, are identical."

"That is true, Mr. President, but it is what the Rebel leaders

try to conceal from their dupes. The most damnable effect of slavery has been the engendering at the South of that large class of mean whites, proud, ignorant, lazy, squalid, and brutally degraded, who yet feel that they are a sort of aristocracy because they are not niggers. Having produced this class, Slavery now sees it must rob them of all political rights. Hence the avowed plan of the Secession leaders to have either a close oligarchical or a monarchical government. The thick skulls of these mean whites (or if not of them, of their children) we must reach by help of the schoolmaster, and let them see that their interests lie in the elevation of labor and in opposition to the theories of the shallow dilettanti of the South, who, claiming to be great political thinkers and philosophers, maintain that capital ought to own labor, and that there must be a hereditary servile race, if not black, then white, in whom all mental aspiration and development shall be discouraged and kept down, in order that they may be content to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. As if God's world-process were kept up in order that a few Epicurean gentlemen may have a good time of it, and send their sons to Paris to eat sumptuous dinners and attend model-artist entertainments, while thousands are toiling to supply the means for their base pleasures. As if a Frederick Douglas must be brutified into a slave in order that a Slidell may give Sybarite banquets and drive his neat span through the Champs Elysées!"

"What should we do with the blacks after we had freed them?"

"Let them alone! Let them do for themselves. The difficulties in the way are all those of the imagination."

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"I like the moderation of your views as to confiscation." "When the mass of the people at the South," continued Vance, come to see, as they will eventually, that we have been fighting the great battle of humanity and of freedom, for the South even more than for the North, for the white man even more than for the black, there will be such a reaction as will obliterate every trace of rancor that internecine war has begotten. But I have talked too much. I have occupied too much of your time."

"O no! I delight to meet with men who come to me,

thinking how they may benefit, not themselves, but their country. The steam-tugs you gave us off the mouths of the Mississippi we would gladly have paid thirty thousand dollars for. I wish I could meet your views in regard to the enlistment of black troops; but · but that pear is n't yet ripe. Failing that, you shall have any place you want in the Butler and Farragut expedition against New Orleans. As for your young friends, - what did you say their names are?"

"Robert Onslow and Charles Kenrick."

"O yes! Onslow, you say, has been a captain in the Rebel service. Both the young men shall be honorably placed where they can distinguish themselves. I'll speak to Stanton about them this very day. Let me make a note of it."

The President drew from his pocket a memorandum-book and hastily wrote a line or two. Vance rose to take his leave.

“Mr. President," said he, "I thank you for this interview. But there's one thing in which you 've disappointed me." "Ah! you think me rather a slow coach, eh?"

"Yes; but that was n't what I alluded to."

"What then?"

"From what I've read about you in the newspapers, I expected to have to hear one of your stories."

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A smile full of sweetness and bonhommie broke over the President's care-worn face as he replied: Really! Is it.possible? Have you been here all this time without my telling you a story? Sit down, Mr. Vance, and let me make up for my remissness."

Vance resumed his seat.

The President ran his fingers through his long, carelessly disposed hair, pushing it aside from his forehead, and said: "Once on a time the king of beasts, the lion, took it into his But before leaving

head he would travel into foreign parts. his kingdom he installed an old 'coon as viceroy. The lion was absent just four months to a day; and on his return he called all the principal beasts to hear their reports as to the way in which affairs had been managed in his absence. Said the fox, 'You left an old imbecile to rule us, sire. No sooner were you gone than a rebellion broke out, and he appointed for our leader a low-born mule, whose cardinal maxim in mili

tary matters was to put off till to-morrow whatever could be just as well done to-day; whose policy was a masterly inactivity instead of a straightforward movement on the enemy's works.' Said the sheep, 'The 'coon could have had peace if he had listened to me and others who wanted to draw it mild and to compromise. Such a bloodthirsty wretch as the 'coon ought to be expelled from civilized society. Said the horse, 'He is too slow.' Said the ox, 'He is too fast.' Said the jackass, 'He does n't know how to bray; he can't utter an inspiring note.' Said the pig, 'He is too full of his jokes and stories.' Said the magpie, 'He is a liar and a thief.' Said the owl, He is no diplomatist.' Said the tiger, 'He is too conservative.' Said the beaver, 'He is too radical.' 'Stop!' roared the king, —‘shut up, every beast of you!' At once there was silence in the assembly. Then, turning to his viceroy, the lion said, 'Old 'coon, I wish no better proof that you have been faithful than all this abuse from opposite parties. You have done so well, that you shall be reinstalled for another term of four months!""

"And what did the old 'coon say to that?" asked Vance. "The old 'coon begged to be excused, protesting that he had experienced quite enough of the charms of office."

The President held out his hand. Vance pressed it with a respectful cordiality, and withdrew from the White House.

OT many weeks after the conversation (not altogether imaginary) at the White House, a yo young man in the uniform of a captain lay on the sofa in a room at Willard's Hotel in Washington. He lay reading a newspaper, but the paleness of his face showed that he had been suffering either from illness or a serious wound. This young man was Onslow. In a cavalry skirmish at Winchester, in which the Rebels had been handsomely routed, he had been shot through the lungs, the ball coming out at his back. There was one chance in a thousand that the direction taken by the ball would be such that the wound should not prove fatal; and this thousandth chance happened in his favor. Thanks to a naturally vigorous constitution, he was rapidly convalescing. He began to be impatient once more for action.

There was a knock at the door, and Vance entered.

"How is our cavalry captain to-day?" he asked cheerily. "Better and better, my dear Mr. Vance.”

"Let me feel of his pulse.

Appetite?"

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Improving daily. He ate two boiled eggs and a lamb chop for breakfast, not to speak of a slice of aerated bread."

"Come now,

that will do.

He will be ready soon for a

bullet through his other lung.

But he must not get restless.

There's plenty of fighting in store for him."

"Mr. Vance, I've been pondering the strange story of your life; your interview with my father on board the Pontiac ; the